It had viewers hooked since it first hit telly screens in 2018.
Sadly, a third season of Big Little Lies is looking (very, very) far from being confirmed – although, we’ll admit it, we’re still keeping our fingers crossed it will happen.
But ever since season two came to an end last year, we’ve been hungry for more gripping page-turners filled with mysterious deaths, strong female leads and unreliable narrators.
And if you’re anything like us, we’ve got some good news: we’ve rounded up 15 brilliant books that fans of Big Little Lies will adore.
The Party by
Sweet sixteen. It’s a coming of age, a milestone, a rite of passage. Of course Jeff and Kim Sanders will throw a party for their daughter, Hannah. She’s a good kid with good grades and nice friends. And it isn’t going to be a big, indulgent affair. Just four girls coming over for pizza and cake, movies and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong?
But things do go wrong, horrifically wrong. After a tragic accident, Jeff and Kim’s flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb begins to unravel. The injured girl’s mother, Lisa, files a lawsuit that turns friends into enemies, reveals dark secrets in the Sanders’ marriage, and exposes the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah. Lisa’s determination to make the Sanders pay stems from a fierce love for her only child and Lisa’s own dark and damaged past.
Six Wicked Reasons by Jo Spain
It’s June 2008 and twenty-one-year-old Adam Lattimer vanishes, presumed dead. The strain of his disappearance breaks his already fragile family.
Ten years later, with his mother deceased and siblings scattered across the globe, Adam turns up unannounced at the family home. His siblings return reluctantly to Spanish Cove, but Adam’s reappearance poses more questions than answers. The past is a tangled web of deceit. And, as tension builds, it’s apparent somebody has planned murderous revenge for the events of ten years ago.
The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell
Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?
On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
Your neighbour told you that she didn’t want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn’t stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You’ll have the baby monitor and you’ll take it in turns to go back every half hour.
Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She’s gone. You’ve never had to call the police before. But now they’re in your home, and who knows what they’ll find there.
The Hand That Feeds You by
Morgan’s life is settled – she is completing her thesis on victim psychology and newly engaged to Bennett, a man more possessive than those she has dated in the past, but also more chivalrous and passionate. But she returns from class one day to find Bennett savagely killed, and her dogs – a Great Pyrenees, and two pit bulls she was fostering – circling the body, covered in blood. Everything she holds dear in life is taken away from her in an instant.
Devastated and traumatised, Morgan tries to locate Bennett’s parents to tell them about their son’s death. Only then does she begin to discover layer after layer of deceit. Bennett is not the man she thought he was. And she is not the only woman now in immense danger …
The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy
We all want different things. Francie wants to be the perfect mother. Nell wants to escape the past. Collette wants to spend more time with her family. All Winnie wants is to have her baby back. When Nell suggests a night out in Brooklyn to her new mums’ club, the others jump at the chance. But the evening takes a tragic turn when Winnie learns that her six-week-old son Midas has been kidnapped.
As the investigation hits a dead end, Nell, Collette and Francie make it their mission to succeed where the police are failing. But as Winnie and those around her come under scrutiny from the media, damaging secrets come to light and friendships are pushed to the limit.
The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald
Abi Knight is startled awake in the middle of the night to a ringing phone and devastating news – her teenage daughter, Olivia, has been in a terrible accident. Abi is told that Olivia slipped and fell from a bridge into the icy water below, and now she lies silent, dependent on life support.
But then Abi sees the angry bruises around Olivia’s wrists and learns that her sensible daughter is in fact three months pregnant . . .
The Wife by Alafair Burke
When Angela met Jason Powell, while catering a function in the Hamptons, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, but to her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to start again, for her and her young son to move from her mother’s home to Manhattan, where no one knew of her tragic past.
Six years later, thanks to a best-selling book and a growing media career, Jason has become a celebrated liberal figurehead, placing Angela near the spotlight she worked so carefully to avoid. When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward with an even more troubling allegation, their perfect life begins to unravel. Jason insists he is innocent, but increasingly Angela is forced to ask how well she ever really knew her husband, and if she can afford to stand by him and risk her damaged past being revealed.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
From the author of Big Little Lies, the book follows nine perfect strangers, each hiding an imperfect life who go to a luxury retreat cut off from the outside world.
It’s 10 days long and promises that it will totally change your life. But some promises – like some lives – are perfect lies . . .
Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson
It starts as a game at a book group one night. Never Have I Ever… done something I shouldn’t. But Amy Whey has done something she shouldn’t. And Roux, the glamorous newcomer to Amy’s suburban neighbourhood, knows exactlywhat that is.
Roux promises she will go away – if Amy plays by her rules. But Amy isn’t prepared to lose everything. She’s going to fight back, and in this escalating game of cat and mouse, there can be only one winner.
Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
Sloane, Ardie, Grace and Rosalita have worked in the same legal office for years. The sudden death of the firm’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Each of the women has a different relationship with Ames, who has always been surrounded by whispers about how he treats women. Those whispers have been ignored, swept under the rug, hidden away by those in charge.
But the world has changed, and the women are watching this latest promotion for Ames differently.This time, they’ve decided enough is enough. Sloane and her colleagues’ decision to take a stand sets in motion something catastrophic and unstoppable: lies will be uncovered, secrets will be exposed and not everyone will survive. All their lives – as women, colleagues, mothers, adversaries – will be changed for ever.
Stolen Things by R.H. Herron
Laurie Ahmadi has worked as a 911 police dispatcher in her quiet Northern California town for seventeen years. Her husband, Omid, is chief, and their teenage daughter Jojo has grown up surrounded by cops. So when Laurie catches a 911 call and, to her horror, it’s Jojo, the whole department springs into action. Jojo, drugged, disoriented, and in pain, doesn’t remember how she ended up at the home of Kevin Leeds, a pro football player. She doesnt know what happened to Kevin’s trainer, whose beaten corpse is also discovered in the house. And she has no idea where her best friend Harper, who was with her earlier in the evening, could be.
When Jojo’s rape kit comes back positive, the case seems straightforward – Kevin Leeds hates cops after all. But Jojo insists that Kevin wouldn’t hurt her. Which means that Harper is still in danger. When Jojo begins to dive into Harper’s social media to look for clues to her whereabouts, she uncovers a shocking secret that turns everything she knew about Harperand the police department shes always considered her family – on its head.
Conviction by Denise Mina
It’s just a normal morning when Anna’s husband announces that he’s leaving her for her best friend and taking their two daughters with him. With her safe, comfortable world shattered, Anna distracts herself with someone else’s story: a true-crime podcast. That is until she recognises the name of one of the victims and becomes convinced that only she knows what really happened.
With nothing left to lose, she throws herself into investigating the case. But little does she know, Anna’s past and present lives are about to collide, sending everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall.
I Know Everything by Matthew Farrell
Police investigator Susan Adler is ready to close the book on a deadly car accident, but after the medical examiner discovers evidence of foul play, she knows she has a murder on her hands. The victim was the wealthy wife of Randall Brock, a renowned psychiatrist who treats patients with disturbing, brutal fantasies. And just like that, Susan’s got a suspect.
Randall has a violent past but knows he didn’t kill his wife. In the midst of his crushing grief, Randall receives a visit from a stranger with information to share about his wife’s death. But there’s a catch: in exchange for the stranger’s information, Randall must reveal dark secrets he’s kept hidden for years. As this shady figure applies more pressure and Susan closes in, Randall begins to doubt himself, clinging desperately to the pieces of his sanity.
Revelations and suspicious coincidences send shock waves through the investigation, and circumstances spin out of control. Susan must race to put it all together before it’s too late—before the next murder strikes too close to home.
A Stranger on the Beach by Michele Campbell
There is a stranger outside Caroline’s house. Her spectacular new beach house, built for hosting expensive parties and vacationing with the family she thought she’d have. But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aidan, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.
As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she’s built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aidan for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aidan’s obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline’s husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband’s murder.
